Where I Stood
by coldqueen
Summary: The beginning of Alice's story, seen through her eyes.


**Title:** Where I Stood (1/1)

**Genre:** Book

**Series:** Twilight, Stephenie Meyer

**Characters:** Alice Cullen

**Spoilers:** All

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** The beginning of Alice's story.

**Author's Note:** I've read probably every "origin" story out there, but I've never felt like any of them were right. This is my attempt to get it right. The song is by Missy Higgins.

**Cross-posted:** Livejournal, various places.

* * *

_I don't know what I've done  
Or if I like what I've begun  
But something told me to run  
And honey, you know me, it's all or none_

There were sounds in my head  
Little voices whispering  
That I should go and this should end  
Oh and I found myself listening

'Cause I don't know who I am, who I am without you  
All I know is that I should  
And I don't know if I could stand another hand upon you  
All I know is that I should  
'Cause she will love you more than I could  
She who dares to stand where I stood

See I thought love was black and white  
That it was wrong or it was right  
But you ain't leaving without a fight  
And I think I am just as torn inside

'Cause I don't know who I am, who I am without you  
All I know is that I should  
And I don't know if I could stand another hand upon you  
All I know is that I should  
'Cause she will love you more than I could  
She who dares to stand where I stood

And I won't be far from where you are if ever you should call  
You meant more to me than anyone I ever loved at all  
But you taught me how to trust myself and so I say to you  
This is what I have to do

* * *

Carlisle has long hypothesized that my visions pertain only to humans and vampires because at one time I _was_ human, and _am_ now vampire. I can't see werewolves or halflings because I never was either. I've dared to take that theory farther and think that the most likely reason why my visions are only of the future is because I have no past. There is no doubt that I was human, but when humans become vampires they are left with only their memories. Without even that tenacious connection there's only one thing left, what is to come.

My first memory was of color. Like shifting fog on a cold morning, they moved behind my eyes. Changing form, becoming clearer and concentrating in purposeful ways before dispersing again; the colors represented comfort and familiarity when I was so very lost.

The thought that I might even reach out and touch the colors, very clear behind my eyes, gave me my second memory; I was on the ground. The idea of my body connected my senses to it with startling abruptness. I don't know how long I had been contemplating the rainbow in my mind, but suddenly I knew physicality. I knew the hardness of the ground beneath, knew the texture of grass under my fingers, and I knew the feel of rain on my face.

I also knew hunger, powerful and burning at the back of my throat. The surge of it, the sudden knowledge of _need_, tore my eyes open. The hunger was so strong, so prominent, that for seconds I couldn't actually see. I knew only the vibrant red of the hunger in my mind, the dark feeling of it in my shaking muscles.

Then I knew sight.

The clouds above me flashed with lightning, revealing the churning nature of the storm. Immediately I compared my mental landscape to that of the storm and found them similar. The flash of lightning had no counterpart that I'd seen as of yet, but the movement and the feeling of power was almost the same.

The rain dropped on my skin with a soft sound and a slick slide and I knew movement. I gave a second's thought to trying to move myself and sat up before the thought had completed. From sitting to standing in less than a second and my body rejoiced in the motion. I still felt strangely disjointed, almost confused. The world around me was so sharp and clear but my mind was still foggy with those maddening colors.

My hair was wet and tangled around me and I instinctively reached up and pushed several sopping strands behind my ear, the gesture natural until I gave thought to it. My body knew how to do things, and did them without my thinking, but my mind had no such training. It was as if thinking itself was an exercise, something I'd done before but it had been so long that I'd almost forgotten how.

The sky above echoed with thunder and my body jumped, again with no prompting from my mind. The sound was so loud that for the few seconds, seconds that seemed to last minutes, I couldn't think.

I was sensate, the vibrations of the thunder starting at my head and slowly reverberating down my body, my vision darkening in splotches as my head turned upward to the sky. Even the hunger abated in that time, dousing the fire and replacing it with the cold copper taste of blood before it twisted into the sweet taste of wine.

In that moment of weakness the colors in my mind snapped together and revealed themselves to me.

A series of visions played behind my blank eyes, flashes of my future.

The first was of a diner, the clank of dishes and cutlery grating in my ears, and the saccharine scent of perfume clouding my nose. In the vision, I could feel the seat beneath me, the hard creak of plastic and beneath it the harsh cushion of padding. I turned in the seat, my eyes drifting over the crowd around me with ease until they settled on the pale creature in the doorway. His eyes burned red and unnatural compared to the browns and blues of the fragile creatures between us, but I felt no trepidation. My lips curved and formed words as I gestured to him, and though it was a whisper I knew he heard me. "You've kept me waiting a long time." I felt elated and so terribly nervous at the same time.

The man, blond and dashing, his skin shining with an inner light yet textured by scars, studied me with cold eyes. The placidity of his face belied the polite nature of his words. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

The colors of the scene before me suddenly lost cohesion, blurring and changing the scene before I could get a truly good look at the surroundings. From that diner grew trees, tall and welcoming in the sunlight. From a nervous smile and trembling hands came a jubilant laugh and the feeling of carefree love, the transition smooth and effortless. From sitting at the counter I was suddenly running through those trees, the feeling glorious in my body as I moved faster than human eyes could track. Instinctively I knew I was being followed, knew that I welcomed his chase.

My head turned to the side, short hair dancing around my face as I sought the golden eyes of my chaser. It was the man from the diner, his severe face split with a smile as he too moved faster than humanly possible, always just out of reach of me despite his attempts. My laugh spilled forth again, almost visible in the air as it danced between us.

I felt loved and desperate and achy in a way I'd never felt, and it all tied back to this man. This golden man that chased me as if his world depended on it, the man whose eyes made me tighten in my womb and the ache there clench almost uncomfortably.

The sun speared through the leaves above and we moved through it unseeingly. I saw the way his skin refracted the light and made it dance in the air in colors that put the ones of my mind to shame. My skin did the same and together we made rainbows that illuminated the shadows of the forest as our game spurred us forward.

My laughter ebbed away and I threw myself through the edge of the trees and down into grass with a grateful smile. Half a second later he was beside me, his arms already reaching for me. His pale skin on mine, small half circle scars crossing and ruining the pearlescent perfection that matched my own perfectly. My fingers slid past those scars, so ugly to all eyes except mine, and grasped his much larger hands with familiarity.

"I run, you chase," I whispered to him as he pulled me atop him, I straddled him with ease. I could see myself reflected in his amber eyes, the play of sunlight on my skin, my dark hair contrasting extremely. In that reflection I saw myself for the first time. The small delicate features that were almost fey-like, the mirth that twisted my mouth into a perpetual half-smile, the wind-ruffled short hair that danced around my head wildly; I saw what he saw and I knew myself.

The man looked at me with a pained expression, half desperate, half needy. His lips twisted around his words as he gazed on me in a way that made me feel complete. "I love you, Alice."

I knew my name.

I felt my lips move with a response, I knew the words even as I prepared to give them voice, but the vision blurred and changed. The bright sun of noon became the luminescent of the moon, but the forest remained the same. I stood beside the man I loved and we gazed across the field to the small family that stood there.

They had the pale skin of our people, and the golden eyes of me and my love, and a look of curiosity that begged for satiating. I felt the restrained urge to touch held quick within my chest, my eyes loving for people I had never met before, not in reality. I let my man speak, as he held himself strong and confident before them, my pride in him knew no bounds.

"I am Jasper and this is my mate Alice," he introduced, gesturing to me gracefully. I could not restrain my words of joy as I looked upon the four before us.

"We've been waiting for you a long time," I explained as I moved forward and grasped Jasper's hand. "I wish Edward could be here, but it wasn't meant to be."

The oldest amongst them, the acknowledged leader, stepped forth and spoke softly and considerately. "We have a home nearby; perhaps it'd be best to speak there. You clearly share the same," he paused and coughed lightly and Alice recognized instantly that the mask of humanity was worn far deeper within this man than within any others she'd ever met, "diet as we, and it's always nice to meet others of our kind. I am Carlisle, and this is my family. Esme, my wife, Rosalie and her fiancé Emmett," he introduced them each in turn, before turning questioning eyes to them. "You already know of Edward, I believe, though I don't recall him ever mentioning either of you."

"Oh, we've never met. I saw him, though, and you all. It's what drew us here," I explained, though Jasper hissed with disapproval at my side. I looked at him in love and a small touch of sheepishness. He hadn't wanted to inform this new coven of our gifts, but I knew what he didn't. We would return to this coven's home and we would never leave. They were our new home. They were why we'd waited in this forest for their hunting to bring them here for so very long.

Though her words had again provoked a pang of curiosity within Carlisle, he merely gestured for them to follow as he and his tawny-eyed family disappeared into the shadows of the forest.

I felt my body in the vision move forward, following the future as it moved beyond my grasp, but found my mind slipping back into the present with a soft rush of discomforting tingling. My palms were damp and the feeling of discomfort only grew. I blinked slowly and tried to settle my spinning thoughts. My body remained impassive, no heartbeat, no breath, and as my thoughts spun around the new memories of what I'd just seen I knew why I felt so uncomfortable.

In the vision, one I knew without doubt was of the future, I'd been breathing. Forcing myself to breath in and out, bringing the scent of the Earth within me, combining that woodsy stench with the earthy perfume of Jasper.

My mind stuttered to a halt as the plethora of new knowledge reasserted itself.

I was Alice. My name was Alice. I didn't know what I was, but I was inherently different from the people of this world. The people in the diner, so normal, so full of delicious blood, would not have skin that caused the light to shimmer in the air of the day as Jasper and I did. We were different.

I was Alice. I was destined to meet and love Jasper. There was a diner somewhere, a diner that advertised the "Best Pies East of the Mississippi!", and that was where I would meet him. I didn't know when, didn't know where, but I knew why and that was enough.

I was Alice, he was Jasper, and we had family waiting for us. A family who would share the same hungers as we did, the same difference integral to our beings. A family of who had eyes like ours, skin like ours, and who would love us.

In that moment, alone in the slackening rain, I'd never felt more alone. With colors dancing behind my eyes, fresh sharp memories of what was to come making my head hurt, I stood beneath the storm and wished that it'd all come to pass already. I wished I knew how to slacken this hunger in my throat. I wished I had Jasper's hand in mine to comfort me in this terrible unknown. I wished I had that family standing behind me, giving me support to do what I had to do, though I didn't know what that was.

If I just stood here, in these trees forever, would they eventually come and find me? Would fate somehow direct them here to me, to take their places in my destiny and me in theirs?

Even as I posed the question, this strange ability to see past the present reasserted itself and showed me what would come of that decision. The same vision, this unyielding, unchanging view of the forest around me. All of eternity staring at the redwood's bark as it grew taller and reached for the heavens as I stood and remained the same, a statue that attested to the decision to do nothing.

I was moving without thought, escaping that vision of nothingness and rejoicing as the certainty of my future returned to me. I would let fate guide my actions, and would trust that it knew where to direct me. As in those visions, as I moved I forced myself to take air into my lungs, holding it in and savoring the various scents before releasing it again.

The first breath of my new life, my only life.

* * *

Review, please.


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